I thought that it would be fun to have some Holy Ground in the games featuring Ramirez and co. The Highlander concept of neutral holy ground actually makes marginally more sense in the context of 40k “Sensei” than it does for Christopher Lambert and the rest I think. The Sensei are unknowing descendants of the Emperor and therefore could have some sort of religious/spiritual connection with areas of Emperor worship. Im probably overthinking it. Im pretty sure that the writers of Highlander didnt give it much thought…

“You are shafe only on Holy Ground. None of ush will violate that rule. it’sh tradition.”

The ruined Aquila is a plastic piece from the “Honoured Imperium” box. I quite like the set but I never got around to picking it up until recently, when I heard rumours that it is to go out of production soon. I dont know if thats true or not, but it is a nice set. I will get around to painting the statue part of the kit at a later date: I have a few other painting projects with deadlines that I have to prioritise for now.

Most of these Honoured Imperium aquilae that I have seen have been painted gold for some reason, even though the way that the model is designed the sculpture looks like its a rigid, non metallic substance like rock or concrete or in this case, marble.

I decided to go for green marble to reference the green colour that has been prevalent in the 40k logo since third edition in 1998. The marble effect worked out a lot better than I expected it to, particularly considering I fired it out in an hour or so in front of the TV. Click on the images for a closer look if you like, I uploaded slightly larger images than usual for that reason.

On a related note, there are three close to identical images in this post because I wanted to try to show how the gloss varnish really improves the marble effect. It works particularly well here I think, with the flat faces on the aquilae reflecting in different ways due to the “broken” nature of the design.

Fighting on Holy Ground is against tradition but desecrating such a lovely terrain piece woud be an outrage. Let’s hope no one will be foolish like Mario von Peebles. (insert Christophe Lambert laughter here)

With a Frenchman on my right and a Scotsman on my left I am in an enviable position for a Highlander re-enactment. How is your Scottish accent JB? Better than Whiskey Priests Spanish/Egyptian? Better than any of Lamberts accent skills?

The effect was based on a technique shown on Terragenesis, but I modified the process in a few ways. This is what I did:

Spray black
Drybrush a dark green (I used GW Orkhide Shade)
Drybrush edges a mid green (very old GW Snot Green)
Stipple everything with a light grey (Model Colour Light Grey). I used a folded over, cut up piece of pot scrubber to stipple on the paint to try to get a nice random pattern. At this stage it will look like you have ruined the model, but you have to have faith that the following steps will deaden the horrible, bird shit look that the piece will have now.
Stipple with a dark grey (GW Mechanicum Standard Grey)
Stipple with mid green (GW Snot Green)
Paint wobbly veins in thinned light grey (Model Colour Light Grey)
Paint some parts of the veins with a light grey/white mix.
Glaze the whole thing with a green (I used old GW Green Glaze)
Paint a little bit of the grey/white mix into the veins again.
Shade recesses with a dark wash (I painted Army Painter Dark tone into the gaps)
Gloss varnish

Looking at that list it appears complicated, but it isnt, its just methodical. None of the steps are difficult. I hope that you try it Suber. Thanks for the feedback.

It honestly isnt very much work Suber and because its an imprecise way of painting, its easy to do without concentrating too much, like in front of the TV when tired after work or something. You should try it 🙂